DATE: Sunday, June 1, 1997                  TAG: 9706020226

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music review

SOURCE: BY PAUL SAYEGH, SPECIAL TO THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   62 lines

VIRGINIA CHORALE CLOSES SEASON ON A HIGH NOTE, NAMES DIRECTOR

The Virginia Chorale concluded its season Friday evening, with Dale Warland, an internationally respected figure in choral music, leading the group in a program of American music.

This couldn't have been an easy season for the chorale. Last spring, its founder, Donald J. McCullough, left after 12 years of directing the group. So closely associated was he with the group that it carried his name. Some thought the ensemble might not survive his departure.

This season, a decision was made to rename the group the Virginia Chorale, to have a transitional season of guest conductors, and to search for a new director.

Friday night's concert at Maury High School was testimony to the group's artistic health. The performances under Warland were superb. And the program, rather than being a watered-down version of choral music mixed in with old favorites, was a reminder that American composers have produced an impressive body of work and that there is an audience for such music.

The concert opened with a group of American madrigals. These were by turns lively, witty and lyrical exercises in word setting.

The chorale appeared on form from the start, needing no warm-up period. The clean and pure sound of Ned Rorem's ``Tears'' was indicative of the entire evening's performance. In Erik Whitacre's ``Water Night,'' the chorale's ability to sustain long, even lines, at a very soft dynamic level, was the key to that song's haunting effect.

Jeffrey Van's ``Four Civil War Poems of Walt Whitman'' was the longest work on the program, a song-cycle for chorus and solo guitar.

The four songs move from grim determination, through dissonance and pain, and finally to a kind of resignation. Musical tension is generated by the diverse, often jarring contrasts between the guitar and chorus.

These seem to become more prominent as the cycle progresses, until the tension is released in the final song. The chorus' harmonies here have a soothing, calming effect that is most moving.

Van's cycle was given a strong, emotional performance by the chorale, and especially guitarist Timothy P. Olbrych.

A selection of folk songs was more uneven. Stephen Paulus' ``The Water is Wide'' and Aaron Copland's ``Zion's Walls'' both made a strong effect, the latter whetting the appetite for his ``The Tender Land'' at Virginia Opera next season.

But ``Oh, Shenandoah'' and ``Skip To My Lou'' were burdened with over-sophisticated arrangements that were at odds with the music's simple style. Even here, though, the chorale sounded beautiful.

At intermission, the announcement was made that a successor to McCullough has been chosen. He is Robert Shoup, director of the Canton Symphony Chorus and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he studied with Robert Page. Shoup will guide not only the Virginia Chorale but also the Virginia Symphony Chorus.

On the evidence of Friday's concert, he is inheriting an outstanding group of singers, and it will be interesting to watch where he takes them in the coming season. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

CONCERT REVIEW

The Virginia Chorale, Maury High School Auditorium in Norfolk,

Friday evening.

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